Bio

Ph.D. in Organizational Behavior, Graduate School of Business at Stanford University

Peter Belmi is a professor at the Darden School of Business and holds a courtesy appointment at the School of Engineering and Applied Science. He received his Ph.D. in Organizational Behavior from the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University. His scholarship on the psychology of inequality has received several awards. He received the Wells Fargo Award for Most Outstanding Research Publication in 2020, the Best Article Award from the Academy of Management in 2016, the Best Paper Award from the Excellence in Ethics Research Conference in 2014, and the Outstanding Research Award from the Society of Personality and Social Psychology in 2012. Thinkers50 named Peter one of the "30 emerging thinkers with the potential to make lasting contributions to management theory and practice." He currently serves on the editorial board of Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes and Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin.

Peter teaches a popular first-year MBA elective called "Paths to Power." He has been recognized with many accolades for his dedication to his students as well. In 2018, he was named by Poets & Quants as one of the "40 Best Business Professors Under 40." That same year, he also received the University of Virginia's Mead-Colley Award, a distinction given to the professor who embodies the Jeffersonian vision of an ideal teacher. In 2020, Peter received the Faculty Diversity Award for his "exceptional contributions to diversity, equity, and inclusion within the Darden community."

Peter's work is published in leading psychology and management journals, such as the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, Journal of Applied Psychology, and Organizational Behavior and Human Design Processes. It has also been featured by The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg Businessweek, Fortune, Forbes, NPR, Huffington Post, Newsweek, the Financial Times, Marketwatch, Priceonomics, Public Radio International, The Boston Globe, Medium, Harvard Business Review, Academic Minute, and InsideHigherEd.

Research Interests

  • Power
  • Status
  • Inequality
  • Hierarchies

Selected Publications

  • Human "Resources": Objectification Occurs More in Work than Non-Work Contexts Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
  • The social advantage of miscalibrated individuals: The relationship between social class and overconfidence and its implications for class-based inequality Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 118
  • The effect of economic consequences on social judgment and choice: Reward interdependence and the preference for sociability versus competence Journal of Organizational Behavior, 39, 990-1007
  • Who wants to get to the top? Class and lay theories about power Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 111(4)
  • Power and death: Mortality salience increases power-seeking while feeling powerful reduces death anxiety Journal of Applied Psychology, 101(5)
  • How 'organization' weakens the norm of reciprocity: The effects of attributions for favors and a calculative mindset Academy of Management Discoveries, 1, 36-57
  • Threats to identity can trigger social deviance Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 41(4), 467-484
  • Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who's the fairest of them all? Thinking that one is attractive increases the tendency to support inequality Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 124(2), 133-149

Courses Taught

  • MBA Leading Organizations Core Course
  • First Year Elective: The Paths to Power
  • Seminar on Leadership: The Social Psychology of Organization